News of an amazing new species found in Indonesia! “The jaw-dropping, shiny black wasp appears to be the “Komodo dragon” of the wasp family. It’s huge. The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said. “Its […]

Another interesting book, hot off the press (well, electronic press) in 2008: “WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) today released SCIENCE, EVOLUTION, AND CREATIONISM, a book designed to […]

Wow! The journal Evolution: Education and Outreach will be free for all of 2008! From a press release: “Evolution: Education and Outreach promotes understanding and teaching of evolutionary theory for a wide audience. Targeting students […]

Two cool papers out this week–one on the adaptive radiation of beetles, and the other on assassin bugs and their lovely habit of decorating themselves with the corpses of their prey. The Other 95% did […]

Another neat resource I discovered recently–there are a large number of interviews with scientists online you can download (including text transcripts) in the form of podcasts. The “Ask-A-Biologist” podcast is produced on the campus of […]

Ok, not the brain-eating kind of zombie. Carl Zimmer has an update on the emerald cockroach wasp, Ampulex compressa. New research makes the story even stranger–it turns out you can get the roaches to un-zombie […]

Several other insects besides silkworms make silk, but not much has been known about the structure of those compounds. Bee and ant larvae produce silk and, although the silks in all these species are produced […]

Check out our Wish List!

The insect educational program I run has a wish list for supplies we use regularly to care for our animals:
Bug Barn Amazon Wish List
Please consider buying the Bug Barn some cages or crayons! That lets me use the savings to hire more undergraduates for hands on training.